Former pub worker expresses her surprise after realising body lay in van for four months

FORMER pub worker Racheal Hampshire has expressed her surprise at not knowing a body lay in a pub car park where she worked.

“Ew, to think I worked there and saw this van” Racheal Hampshire wrote on the Ely Standard Facebook page.

It was revealed this week that the body of a former soldier reported missing by his family lay in a van parked in a Stretham pub for four months.

Paul O’Brien, 42, of Cambridge, was discovered dead in the back of a van in a vehicle scrap yard after it was towed from the Lazy Otter pub.

Publican Annette Gwinnett said she had contacted Cambridgeshire police three times to get them to remove the van, which had been parked in their grounds from October until late February.

‘It was a total shock for all of us to learn that his body had been in the van all that time and very tragic,” she said.

As the vehicle was on private land, the police told Ms Gwinnett to contact South Cambridgeshire District Council, which eventually arranged for it to be towed away on February 25.

It was taken to Thriplow, where the owner of the yard discovered Mr O’Brien’s body in the back.

A funeral for Mr O’Brien was held last month near Newcastle and his friends held a wake two days later at The Lazy Otter on what would have been his birthday.